“Cherry?” Russ sounded like he was standing right on the other side of the door. “Are you okay?”
She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She was covered in snot. She reached for some toilet paper and blew her nose.
“Cherry, the night we met...”
She blew her nose again.
“...I thought you were gorgeous.”
She rolled her eyes, ignoring him.
“No, okay—” Russ sounded closer. He sounded miserable. “You know what? I didn’t think that.”
Cherry looked up at the door.
“Because I was young and stupid, and I thought ‘gorgeous’ meant something really specific.”
The door creaked, like he’d leaned against it.
“I thought I was supposed to be with a certain kind of girl,” he said, “the kind of girl that all of my friends and my older brother would agree was hot...
“That felt like success to me.
“That felt like a medal I got to wear all the time.”
Fresh, hot tears spilled down Cherry’s cheeks.
Russ huffed out a loud breath. “When I was in junior high, my brother told me that if I was going to fall in love, I may as well fall in love with someone hot. And I thought that waswisdom. I repeated it to my friends like I was the one who’d thought of it!”
Maybe Cherry hadn’t actually wanted Russ to be honest—he was making her sick.
He kept going:
“All the girls I dated in high school and college kind of looked alike. They didn’t look like you—I didn’t know what to make of you. Ilikedyou. I liked seeing you. I used to watch you in class, and then you showed up at the Galway, and I was half drunk...
“I don’t know, I wasintoyou, Cherry. Then we started talking, and it got worse. All that really mattered in that moment was getting closer. We were sparking, you know?”
Cherry pressed her palms into her eyes.
“But then, I don’t know. Stacia was there. And she was flirting with me. And you were playing kind of hard to get—am I remembering this right? And all my friends were there, drooling over Stacia. She probably wasn’t wearing a bra. She never wore a bra...
“And I wasn’t reallydecidinganything, Cherry. I was drinking, and she was there. And you disappeared, I think? And...”
Something hard knocked against the door. Cherry jumped.
“And you were chubby,” Russ said. He sounded beaten.
Something knocked against the door again.
“I knew my friends would make fun of me for hooking up with you.”
Cherry sobbed silently into her hands.
“Even though their girlfriends weren’t all hot! Corey was with a marshmallow girl—she puffed up as soon as they got married!
“Which is... not the point. I just, um...
“I made a mistake, Cherry. And it haunted me as long as I dated Stacia... every time the three of us were together. I wasnota good boyfriend. I would have been all over you if you’d ever given me even a hint of encouragement. I was crazy about you...” His voice trailed off.
